This invention relates generally to the field of hearing aids and more specifically to a non-electronic hearing aid.
Almost everyone has had the experience of putting one's hands up to one's ears in a cup shape to help direct sound into the ears. This is a natural response to helping one to a gather and amplify the sound entering one's ears in a non-electronic manner. To help facilitate hearing without the necessity of putting one's hands up to one's ears, it would be logical to manufacture a cup shape that mimics the shape of a person's cupped hand and to fasten that cup shape to the outside of each ear by means of a resilient band or other obvious method. In fact, a number of inventors have proposed just such a design and can be seen in their patents:    U.S. Pat. No. 1,708,257    U.S. Pat. No. 2,537,201    U.S. Pat. No. 3,938,616    U.S. Pat. No. 4,768,613    U.S. Pat. No. 4,997,056    U.S. Pat. No. 5,965,850Even though the prior designs cited above do help to direct and amplify sound in a non-electronic manner, they have several deficiencies.
First, the examples sited above are all made by plastic injection molding or other plastic manufacturing process. The manufactured cost of an injection molded plastic product is such that the resulting product would not be considered a disposable item and therefore can not be used in a single use event.
Second, the contoured nature of the cup shapes shown in the above sited patents means that the devices sited would take up significant room for packaging purposes and would also be bulky when put in a person's purse or pocket and would therefore make it difficult to take them to a remote location such as a concert.
Third, the contoured shapes of the designs sited above make it difficult to print advertising slogans or logos on the cup shapes.
Paul Edmundson, in his patent U.S. Pat. No. 5,020,629 discloses a listening enhancement device that is made of die cut sheet material that is folded and snapped into place to form a shape that helps reflect sound into a person's ear. However, the Edmundson device does not effectively direct sound into the user's ear for several reasons. First, by the nature of the design, sound can be trapped between the sound reflective surface and the back of the user's ear. Second, Edmundson is calling for the use of a soft material to make the reflective surface. Experiments show that a hard flexible reflective surface is more effective in bouncing sound waves into the user's ear. Finally, although provision is made for some adjustment of the reflective surface by which snaps are used, the resulting reflective surface is not easily adjustable to more than two or three discrete positions.